


Tell Me How All This, And Love Too, Will Ruin Us

by catwrites



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 12:20:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13364586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catwrites/pseuds/catwrites
Summary: In a world full of people who have the name of their soulmate written on their skin, Chuck just happens to be one of the lucky ones that's born blank. Great.





	Tell Me How All This, And Love Too, Will Ruin Us

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, y'all. Pardon my absence while my muse took a vacation and left me bereft. Take this as my humble apology. 
> 
> Title from Richard Siken's poem "Scheherazade"
> 
> Not beta'd. The usual.

He’s born without a name. 

It’s not unheard of, just rare. Only one out of five million people, if that many. 

His mother cries when she realizes. Searches every inch of skin for something that should be there, but isn’t.

It doesn’t really bother him until he gets into school. First day of class everyone is showing off their names, asking others theirs.

“I don’t have one,” he says with a shrug. It hasn’t meant anything in her home, to her parents, so why would it matter here? But of course it does. It matters at home too, but not in the same way.

“That means no one is going to love you,” one of his classmate says, matter of fact in the way only little kids can be. He has a name is bubbly letters curling underneath his collar, just the ‘Kar’ visible.

“That’s not true!” 

“It is so! My mom told me. That means it’s true.”

There’s nothing for him to do but shove the other boy, hard. 

The teacher is at their side as soon as he starts crying.

“What happened here?”

“He said no one would love me, so I pushed him.”

“Keith, why would you say that?”

“Cause he’s a _Blank_.”

The venom with which the word is said has him flinching back. He hasn’t heard that term before, but he knows it’s bad. 

“Keith!” Mrs. Rhodes scolds, eyes wide.

He asks about it at home over dinner.

“What’s a Blank?”

His father chokes a little on his drink. His mother sets down her fork carefully, leaning forward over her plate. “Who called you that?”

“No one.”

“Chuck.”

“Keith did.”

His mother sighs. She sounds sad when she says, “It’s not a nice term for someone who doesn’t have a name.”

“So I am a Blank.”

A Blank. The proper term, the politically correct term, it turns out, is Null. He doesn’t tell anyone after that, doesn’t offer up that information. Not that it matters. The damage is done. His mother shouts up a storm at the teacher and the principal and Keith’s mother, but it doesn’t fix how no one comes near him on the jungle gym during recess.

If elementary school was hard, high school is brutal. The knowledge that he’s a Blank follows him with the rest of his classmates. He’s an oddity, a weird sideshow that the entire school pins under a microscope. Even the teachers, adults he should be able to depend on, give him a wide berth. The whispers follow behind him. That he’s a psychopath. Not having a name means he’ll never form significant emotional ties. No one could love him. He’s broken. 

He’s eating lunch one day, alone, when a boy comes over. Chuck can see his friends urging him forward over his shoulder.

“Is it true?”

Chuck looks at him.

“You know, is it true that you’re a Null?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

He yanks his sleeve up and shoves his wrist under his nose. “Of course not. I’m not a freak.”

He glances casually at the name, the delicate lines of letters, on his wrist.

“Well, that’s not my name, so I don’t see how it matters to you what I have or don’t have written on me.”

“So it is true, then.”

Chuck doesn’t answer, and the other boy bounds away to go back to his friends.

By the time graduations rolls around, and he’s standing at the podium as the salutatorian, he’s made peace with it. He’s done his crying over his blank skin. 

“What’s wrong with me?” sobbed into his mother’s shoulder. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you. It just means that you’re complete on your own. You don’t need anyone else,” his mother had said. At the time, it didn’t mean anything to him. Not when he could see the thick lines of the name expanding down the side of his mother’s calf. 

Now, he stands in front of his entire graduating class, the faculty of the school, the friends and family members in the audience.

“My name is Chuck, as I’m sure everyone is aware. Usually these speeches go a certain way, but I don’t think I can stand up here and honestly say I’m going to miss any of you.”

There’s a weird hush in the crowd. 

He shrugs his shoulder unapologetically. “I think it’d be unfair of anyone to ask me to. I guess the only thing I can thank this school for is how much I’ve learned. Some of it was academic, but more importantly I learned a lot about myself. No one ever said high school was going to be an accepting place, and it certainly wasn’t when it came to me.” 

He pauses to glance around at all the face staring at him. “I spent a lot of my time wondering what was wrong with me, and why I was different. I’m a Null. Or a Blank, if you want. I don’t have a name. And that’s okay. It took me a long time to figure that out. There’s more to life than Soulnames. Soulnames aren’t the end all, be all. And isn’t it sad that the rest of you assholes haven’t figured that out yet.”

He sits down and ignores the mutterings and discomfort of the people around him. 

He moves as far as he feasibly can after graduation, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the people who know him as possible.

College is better. It’s night and day different. He thinks a lot of that has to do with Raleigh.

He meets his roommate, shakes his hand. “My name is Chuck. I’m a Blank.”

He puts every ounce of abrasive gruffness into the introduction as he can manage. He’s learned that if he doesn’t want to get hurt, it’s easier to not give anyone the chance to get close enough to him to do so. He wields his identity like the weapon it is. Drives people away before he gets his hopes up. Before he can pretend that someone might actually understand that just because there’s no name anywhere to be seen, it doesn’t mean he is uncappable of caring about anyone else.

“I’m Raleigh. I’m a Sagittarius.” 

Like it doesn’t matter. Like he’s not a freak, or a psychopath, or any of those other things he’s been called before.

Raleigh has a name across his left shoulder blade. He doesn’t know who Mako is, but she’s lucky, whoever she is.

Raleigh’s brother Yancy has two names, one on each wrist. Chuck wonders in a small, illogical part of himself, if maybe he doesn’t have a name because people like Yancy have two. The universe only has so many names to give out, and some people get double. It’s stupid, and Chuck doesn’t let that brief late-night though taint his relationship with Yancy.

Raleigh is the one who introduces him to the Wei triplets, who have each other’s names stamped over their skin. He can only imagine the kind of shit people said about them growing up. There isn’t enough understanding when it comes to soulnames. While almost all turn out to be romantic, there are cases where soulmates are platonic. Like the Weis. 

Chuck guesses people just prefer to be assholes instead of accepting things at face value.

College is the first place anyone approaches him with a hopeful expression, already rolling up the sleeve of their shirt to show him. He’s sitting in a bar, when some of his friends come in through the door. Friends he only has because Raleigh can steamroll over anyone’s reservations about him until they give in. Until they accept him for who he is. Raleigh has that way about him.

When the Weis come into the bar, they scan the place looking for him. 

“Chuck!”

He waves them over, and one of the girls at the pool table snaps her head up to look in his direction. She trots over, and presents the name to him, eyes wide. He stares at the ‘Chuck’, written dark and jagged on the inside of her elbow, shaking his head. He stares at his name, but it’s not his name. At least, he hopes it’s not. He’d never considered before that someone might have his name written on their skin, but he wouldn’t have theirs. That’s not unheard of either, and it’d be just his luck that he can be several statistics at once.

“That’s not me. I’m sorry. I’m… I don’t have a name. It can’t be me.”

He buys her a drink, and then another. He gives her his number.

“Let me know when you find your Chuck. Sorry it couldn’t be me.”

(He’s so, so grateful when he gets the wedding invitation in the mail several months later. It says ‘Found him’ and nothing else. He sends a generous wedding gift to the pair but doesn’t attend it himself.)

When their freshman year ends, Raleigh and Chuck move into one of the student apartments on campus. Chuck tells himself it’s easier to keep the same roommate, one who accepts him, than to find someone new. Doesn’t let himself think about how badly he’s pretending things might go a different way. That Raleigh might decide that a Soulname isn’t what he wants, and maybe he wants Chuck instead. 

Raleigh doesn’t really talk about his name, or about whoever Mako might be. Chuck’s asked him before if he’s excited to meet her. 

Raleigh had shrugged, said something about how it’ll happen when it happens and he sees no reason to rush any of it. He won’t go out of his way to look for her.

Raleigh kisses him on a Sunday afternoon, sitting on the couch in their living room while they’re playing a drinking game with wine coolers. He laughs afterwards, face flushed. 

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Chuck says sincerely, too stunned to do much else.

“Good,” Raleigh says, before kissing him again.

He should stop it, because he doesn’t want to be a placeholder. Doesn’t want to be something to tide Raleigh over until he meets his Mako and leave Chuck behind for the person destiny has picked for him. He’s half gone on Raleigh already, and it hurts more than he thought love was supposed to. Perhaps it doesn’t feel like this for people with names. People who aren’t him.

There’s no one he knows that he can ask, though. Everyone he knows has a name. He’s never met anyone like him before. They’re out there, somewhere, but there’s no one he can just call up and pour his heart out to. Raleigh is the only person he’s ever been able to talk to about anything serious. Clearly, this isn’t something he can talk to Raleigh about.

He gets a tattoo. His own signature, big and bold, across his back. The pity in the tattoo artist’s eyes as he does it makes Chuck scowl. He gets drunk after, sitting rigid in the chair so he doesn’t accidentally lean against the new tattoo. He looks at it the next morning, head pounding, but doesn’t regret it.

“I complete myself,” he tells his reflection.

Raleigh comes into the bathroom for his toothbrush, squinting and rumpled, but with a genuine smile. “Right on, bro.”

Raleigh runs his hand gently across Chuck’s lower back, and not for the first time, he looks at Raleigh and wishes names weren’t a thing at all. If he could choose, if that’s how it worked, he thinks Raleigh would be it. 

He’s dreading the day that he loses all this. The soft kisses that Raleigh presses all over his face as they lounge in bed together. The way Raleigh sits on the couch with his feet tucked under Chuck’s thighs as he reads his textbooks. The way Raleigh laughs when he says Chuck’s name. Like Chuck’s a constant delight.

Chuck has to remember, though, that his skin is blank. Raleigh’s isn’t. Raleigh isn’t his, and never will be. 

Chuck is meant for no one, and no one is meant for him.

Raleigh meets Mako in his Psychology class. He comes into the apartment with a furrowed brow.

“She’s just… She’s great,” Raleigh says, but he doesn’t sound sure. He’s frowning, absently rubbing the shoulder that Chuck knows has Mako’s name scrawled across it. Chuck is intimately familiar with that shoulder, with the slope of the letters and the artistic way they curl into one another. He’s been careful to avoid touching them whenever they sleep together, but he’s seen it enough.

He puts that out of his head. He buries those memories down as far as they’ll go, and the hurt that goes along with it. He knew this would happen. He knew this was coming. It’s fine. It has to be fine.

“That’s great, Raleigh. I’m so happy for you,” Chuck says as he hugs him, and he means it.

He wants Raleigh to be happy. In the end, that will just have to do.

Raleigh spends his free time with Mako. He comes home after each evening out and sits down heavily next to Chuck on the couch. They watch sitcom reruns together in silence until Raleigh gets up and heads to bed.

Chuck feels like they haven’t seen each other at all in the months following Raleigh’s introduction to Mako.

Chuck catches a glance of Raleigh’s shoulder one morning as they’re passing each other in the hall. The skin around Mako’s name is yellow-green-purple, like a bruise. 

“Do you ever wonder if maybe we got it all wrong?” Raleigh asks in the flickering light of the television one night. There are no other lights on in the apartment.

“Got what wrong?” Chuck looks away from the screen to stare at Raleigh. The shifting shadows over his face make Chuck’s heart ache with a desire to touch, but he doesn’t. They don’t do that anymore.

“The names. What if… what if they don’t mean everything we say they do?”

“Raleigh. What are you talking about?”

Chuck wants to scream. He wants to tell Raleigh that he can’t say that kind of stuff to Chuck without meaning something. 

Raleigh’s quiet for a long time, before he sighs and stands up. “Nothing. Never mind. Forget I said anything. That wasn’t fair to you. I think I’ll head to bed now.”

Chuck watches him go, but doesn’t move to stop him.

He gets another tattoo. The artist is gentle with him, carefully tells him that it won’t change anything. That having a name tattooed on isn’t the same. Chuck promises he knows, and has it plastered big and dark across his left side. It hurts, that spot on his ribs, but he thinks it’s fitting. He gets really, really drunk afterwards. He doesn’t remember getting the tattoo in the morning, and this one makes him feel uncomfortably emotional. He keeps it covered. It’s for him, not for anyone else.

“Chuck.” Raleigh stands bracketed in the door of Chuck’s bedroom, backlight by the light in the hallway. His room is dark.

“What is it?” Chuck asks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes blearily. 

“I need you to look at something for me. I think… I don’t know. Can you just-?”

“Of course, yeah.” He climbs out of bed, stumbling a little on a shoe left on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

He’s starting to get worried because Raleigh looks wrecked. His face is pale in the wash of the hallway light. He’s shaking. 

Raleigh turns his back to Chuck and jerks the neck of his t-shirt to the side. Chuck stares blankly at his shoulder, the flaking, inflamed skin and Mako’s signature already half gone. 

“What?” Chuck says dumbly, reaching out to touch but stopping himself before his hand makes contact. 

“Does it hurt?” 

Raleigh shrugs, which Chuck takes to mean yes. 

“I don’t…” Chuck trails off, lost for words because he doesn’t know what this means. He doesn’t have a name, let alone know what it means for one to be flaking away.

Raleigh turns back around, shoulders hunched up around his ears. “I haven’t told her yet. I think she must know. That’s how this kind of shit is supposed to work, right? She has to know that something is going on with it.”

“It’ll be okay. Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. Have you talked to any of the campus nurses?”

Raleigh shakes his head. “I haven’t. What if it’s something I did, Chuck? What if I did this to myself because I…” 

He trails off, glancing down at the floor before he looks at Chuck miserably. “Because I feel in love with someone else before I met her?”

Chuck runs a hand through his hair. “Even if that’s the case, Ray, you can’t help the way you feel about people.”

Raleigh doesn’t look reassured, and Chuck really doesn’t know what to do to help him.

“In the morning, we’ll go see a doctor. Hopefully, they’ll can tell us more about what’s happening and what you can do to get it to stop.”

“What if I don’t want it to stop?” Raleigh asks, eyes trained onto the carpet. 

Chuck wonders who’s name Raleigh might rather have on his skin. Wonders who he’s met that Chuck doesn’t know about.

“Well, we can ask about that too. It’ll be fine. Mako’s good people. She’ll understand.”

They spend the rest of the night sitting on the couch, television on with the volume muted. They don’t talk.

Raleigh rubs at his shoulder periodically.

Chuck watches him and wonders what he’s thinking. What it might be like to have a name start fading away. He was born without one, so he never had any false hope about one day meeting someone who would be perfect for him in every way. Raleigh’s watching that possibility disappear little by little. 

He wonders what Raleigh’s name looks like on Mako now. 

“Do you want me to go with you?” Chuck asks in the morning, standing in the doorway of Raleigh’s room while he gets dressed. 

Raleigh glances at him, before staring resolutely down at his shoes. “No, that’s okay. I’ll let you know what they say.”

Chuck watches him go, hand pressed flat against the tattoo on his ribs. 

Yancy shows up thirty minutes later, knocking on the door before letting himself in with the key Raleigh gave him.

“Hey kid, how’s it going?” Yancy asks him softly, sitting down on the other end of the couch.

Chuck shrugs. 

“Raleigh called me on his way to the clinic. I told him I’d be here when he got back.”

Chuck nods and stands. “I’ll make myself scarce, then. Give you guys some space.”

Yancy frowns at him. “I don’t think that’s what he’ll want.”

“He’ll have time to talk to me later. We live together. Tell Tendo and Allison hello for me.”

“Chuck.”

Chuck shakes his head and grabs his keys off the hook. “It’s okay. You’re his brother. I understand why he’d rather have you here.”

“Chuck!” Yancy calls out, but Chuck has already darted out the front door.

Selfishly, he’s glad that Yancy is there. That he won’t have to comfort Raleigh about his fading name and hear about the person he wanted desperately enough that the universe decided to give him the ability to make that choice.

He goes to the library and does all the homework he has for the next three weeks, before he wanders around town aimlessly. 

He’s trying not to feel sorry for himself because Raleigh’s the one hurting in all this. Raleigh’s the one who might be losing his chance at the promised happiness a Soulname gives. He can’t help but feel cheated, though.

He gets a text from Raleigh a little before lunch.

_i just got home. where did you go?_

_i just thought maybe you'd want time with Yancy. are you okay?_

Chuck watches the dots of Raleigh typing anxiously.

_im not sure yet. physically ill be fine they said_

_okay. ill be home later._

_k._

Chuck stays out until he gets another text from Raleigh.

_come home._

Chuck's staring at the screen when the next text comes through.

_Please._

The sun has set by the time Chuck slinks in through the door.

Mako is sitting at their kitchen table drinking tea with Raleigh. Chuck figures this means they're trying to make it work.

Mako stands up when she glances at him.

"Don't forget the report we have due on that case study."

Raleigh stands up and hugs her tight. He whispers something to her that Chuck is too far away to hear. She shakes her head.

"It's okay, Raleigh. Really. I love you. I'll see you Monday."

Chuck goes about hanging up his keys, and putting his shoes on the shoe rack.

He's straightening back up when Mako stops in front of him.

He freezes as she studies him before she pulls him into a hug.

She pats him gently on the cheek when she lets him go before she pulls the door open.

"Seriously, Raleigh, don't forget that report," she calls to him as she leaves.

Raleigh is standing in the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. Chuck can just see the edge of some gauze peeking out from under his collar.

"Are you okay?" Chuck asks, gesturing at Raleigh's shoulder

"It's sore. They gave me some kind of paste to rub over it."

Chuck nods. "So they had seem something like this before?"

Raleigh hesitates before he shakes his head. "They hadn't. They'd heard of it happening before, but never seen it themselves."

"You and Mako are working it out, though, so it must be stoppable. Can they reverse it?"

Raleigh shakes his head again. "No. And they didn't think it was going to stop, either. It's almost entirely gone now. The skin is just really raw and bruised. The M is the only piece of it left, last I saw."

Chuck furrows his brows. "How is Mako's?"

"It's faded but it isn't peeling off like mine is."

"What did she have to say about the whole thing? She seemed okay just now."

Raleigh picks up the mugs off the table and turns towards the sink so Chuck can't see his face.

"She's too good to me. I'm the one that couldn't be satisfied with the person the universe thought was best for me. I'm the one who fucked it all up by wanting what I shouldn’t, but she's losing her name, too. She said she doesn't care what happens. She'll love me regardless. She swears she didn't have any feelings for me outside friendship. That this is for the best for both of us. I just don’t know, Chuck. It seems like such a selfish thing to put her through.”

Chuck walks quietly into the kitchen and carefully reaches out to touch Raleigh’s uninjured shoulder.

He shudders under Chuck’s hand, gripping the edges of the counter with his head bowed. 

“If she says it’s okay, that she feels it’s for the best for both of you, you just have to trust her. Take her for her word.”

Raleigh turns to face him, eyes rimmed red. “Do you think I’m a bad person for this?”

“Of course not, Raleigh. You can’t control your feelings. If you love someone else, isn’t it fairer to her to let her go? I don’t think your names would go away if some higher power didn’t agree.”

Raleigh leans forward then and kisses him, face wet. He’s gentle, hand cradling Chuck’s cheek.

Chuck pulls away slowly, keeps his eyes closed as he presses his lips together. 

Raleigh sighs out hard through his nose. “I think I’m just going to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

Chuck keeps his eyes closed, listening to the sound of Raleigh walking away. He doesn’t move until he hears Raleigh’s door click closed.

When he gets up in the morning, Raleigh is already gone.

He calls Yancy. 

“Is Raleigh with you?” 

“No,” Yancy answers slowly.

Chuck can hear voices in the background, can hear Tendo and Allison talking, laughing, and he _wants_ so desperately for that. The certainty that the people he loves will always love him back. That they’ll want him no matter what. He’s fiercely jealous of Yancy, with his two names, and his two people who will never get tired of him, will keep him around.

“Can I come over?” he asks, voice thick in his throat. 

“Of course, Chuck. I’ll get them to clear out, okay? We can talk.”

Chuck wants to insist that he doesn’t need to do that. That he doesn’t have to kick his soulmates out of their own house so that he can talk to his brother’s roommate. 

Chuck is grateful that he offered so he doesn’t have to ask him to do just that.

Yancy opens the door before Chuck can even knock. 

“Oh jeez, kid, come here.”

Yancy pulls him into a hug, and Chuck can’t help it. He fists his hands into Yancy’s shirt and cries.

“I don’t know what to do, Yancy. It’s not fair. I’ve been in love with him this whole time, and now he doesn’t have a name anymore, but he’s still in love with someone else. I don’t think I can handle watching that.”

Yancy gently pulls away. “What? Has Raleigh not talked to you about the whole thing yet?”

“He told me what the doctors said, and what Mako said. I don’t know if he’s talked to whoever it is, but I figure that’s only a matter of time.”

“So you don’t know who it is that he fell for that caused his name to disappear?”

“He hasn’t said, and I haven’t pried. I don’t know who it could even be. The name didn’t start peeling away until after he met Mako, but I don’t remember him mentioning any new friends. I guess he just felt guilty about it so he never mentioned them.”

Yancy frowns at him. “Oh.”

Chuck wipes his nose off on his sleeve, not caring how disgusting it is.

“I made my peace with the fact that he’d never be mine, right? Mako’s great. I just wanted him to be happy. And now I have to see him happy with someone else. Someone he basically gave up Mako for. I didn’t realize that was something that could happen, but it doesn’t matter because of course it wouldn’t happen for me. If it was me, wouldn’t it have happened before he met Mako? No, I can’t be that lucky. I’ve known my whole life that no one would ever love me like that, so it shouldn’t hurt this much, right?”

He’s crying again, and Yancy’s eyes are wide, watching him. “Jesus, okay. Come on, Chuck.”

Yancy steers him into the living room, forcing him to sit down, before he vanishes into the kitchen.

He comes back with tissues and a bottle of water. He hands both to Chuck before he sits down and pulls Chuck into his side.

Chuck cries like he hasn’t since he was a kid asking his parents what was wrong with him and wondering why no one would love him. He cries until his eyes are puffy, and his face feels hot. He cries until he can’t cry anymore, and all that’s left is exhaustion. 

Yancy lets him, just keeping Chuck pulled in close and ignoring the giant wet spot Chuck puts on his shoulder. 

He closes his eyes. “You know, my mom told me I was a Blank because I can complete myself. I don’t need anyone else. When I first met him, I got a tattoo of my own fucking name across my back because I desperately wanted that to be true.”

Yancy is quiet, listening to him talk. 

“I don’t know that it was, though. So, I got another tattoo, and it was just for me. It made me feel better. I don’t know. It was stupid, but it made me feel better. People have names that don’t match sometimes. It happens, like people can be Blank, right? I thought I could fucking pretend. I can’t even look at it, though, because I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want it to be pretend, Yancy.” 

“You got…” Yancy trails off, and Chuck nods tiredly. Doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t even lean away from Yancy as he yanks his shirt up so Yancy can see just how stupid he is. 

“Oh Chuck,” Yancy says, sad and soft. 

Chuck pulls his shirt back down and curls in tighter on himself. They don’t say anything else, and eventually Chuck falls asleep. 

When he wakes up, he’s stretched out on the couch with a blanket tucked in around him. He can hear soft voices in the kitchen. He stays where he is, embarrassed by the fact that he’s even here.

That he came here to cry to Raleigh’s older brother. That he showed Yancy that fucking tattoo because he was tired of keeping it a secret.

He reaches for the tissues and ends up knocking over the bottle of water with a curse. The voices in the kitchen fall silent, and then he can hear someone approaching. 

Allison sits down carefully on the arm of the couch. He doesn’t look at her as she picks up the water and sets it back on the table. 

She sighs, and runs her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, Chuck.”

Chuck closes his eyes, and doesn’t say anything. Eventually, her fingers carding through his hair is enough to lull him back to sleep. He thinks he’d rather sleep for the rest of his life than face the reality waiting for him. The humiliation of his oversharing, and the pain of Raleigh loving someone that isn’t him.

He wakes up again and the house is dark. He turns his head to the side, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he notices that someone is sitting on the floor with their back against the couch. 

It only takes Chuck a moment to realize that it’s Raleigh. Chuck swallows hard, and tries to untangle himself out of the blanket as quietly as he can. 

It’s as he’s sitting up that Raleigh wakes up with a jolt. 

Chuck freezes as Raleigh turns to look at him.

They stare at each other silently for a beat before Raleigh hastily climbs up onto the couch to wrap Chuck up in a crushing hug.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you knew. I thought you knew and just didn’t feel the same.”

“Thought I knew what?” 

Raleigh pulls away and turns on the lamp beside the couch. Chuck blinks into the sudden light, but Raleigh is already moving back into his space and cupping Chuck’s face in his hands.

“It’s you. It’s been you. Probably since we met, but definitely since I kissed you on the couch the first time. It’s always been you.”

Chuck stares at him, eyes wide. “What? But… I don’t understand.”

“I love you, Chuck. There’s no one else. There’s no mysterious person I never told you about, no one I met after I met Mako that you don’t know about.”

Chuck realizes then that Yancy must have called Raleigh, must have told him everything Chuck said. He wants to be mad at Yancy, but Raleigh is holding his face with such tender reverence that he can’t find it in himself to.

“Then why didn’t her name…” he trails off as Raleigh starts shaking his head.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why it didn’t peel until I met her. It certainly would have been easier if it had started before.” Raleigh smiles, bittersweet. “Maybe because I didn’t fully realize until I had met her and knew that I would love her, but never the way I love you. There’s no one I could love the way I love you.”

Chuck kisses him then, hard and desperate. Raleigh climbs over him and forces him back down onto the couch. Raleigh’s weight settles over him, familiar and everything Chuck’s been missing. 

When Raleigh reaches for the hem of his shirt, Chuck freezes, drawing away.

He pants up at the ceiling, fingers locked around Raleigh’s wrist. 

“Did Yancy tell you about the…?”

Raleigh nods, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. “Can I see it?”

Chuck looks at Raleigh, before he nods. 

He sits up so Raleigh can pull his shirt up over his head. Chuck doesn’t look at Raleigh as his breath hitches. Doesn’t look at Raleigh as he runs trembling fingers over Chuck’s ribs. 

“Chuck,” Raleigh whispers.

The way he says it makes Chuck’s heart ache. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. It’s not okay. I’ve been hurting you this whole time, and I didn’t have to. We could have…”

Chuck surges up into him, and kisses the apology out of his mouth. Chases it away with his lips and his tongue and skates his fingers over Raleigh’s skin until he goes pliant and relaxed above him. 

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” Chuck promises him between kisses.

Raleigh sighs into him, and Chuck spares only a moment’s thought for the fact that they’re on Yancy’s couch before he lets Raleigh stripe him of everything else.

Tendo is the first one down the stairs in the morning, making an intentionally cacophonic amount of noise.

Chuck groans into the cushions. Raleigh makes a noise of protest, shifting in his place on top of Chuck’s back, before he buries his face into Chuck’s hair. 

“You guys owe us a new couch for sure,” Tendo comments as he passes to go into the kitchen. 

Chuck listens to him rattling around in the cabinets. Listens to the coffee pot eventually hissing to life. Listens as Allison and Yancy move around upstairs. 

“Do you prefer leather or cloth?” Chuck calls out as Raleigh tightens his grip around Chuck’s waist.

“Cloth! I like wearing shorts in the summer without my thighs sticking,” Allison calls down from upstairs.

Chuck laughs, and he can feel Raleigh’s smile against his ear. 

\----

Chuck is sitting in the living room of their apartment when Raleigh comes in, looking nervous. He drops his jacket and his shoes and his keys right by the front door. Chuck raises an eyebrow at him.

He comes over to stand in front of him slowly, moving in closer when Chuck obligingly lets his legs fall open. 

“What is it?”

Raleigh doesn’t say anything, just carefully pulls up his shirt until Chuck can see the clear plastic over a fresh tattoo. He sits up straighter, heart in his throat.

“Raleigh.”

Raleigh shrugs, hesitant. “I wanted to give you certainty. I wanted you to know that this is it for me. There’s no one else it could ever be.”

Chuck’s hands are shaking as he reaches out and touches Raleigh softly under the tape holding the cellophane in place.

Chuck can feel his eyes watering. He clears his throat a few times before he can find his voice. 

“Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

Chuck pulls Raleigh down into his lap and kisses him, mindful of the new ink.

Chuck thinks maybe the fact that they got to pick is better. 

He can’t wait to run his tongue over his signature on Raleigh’s ribs. Can’t wait to press his fingers against the dark lines. 

For now, just being able to see it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 Catch y'all later.


End file.
